


When you lost

by s1ck_girl



Category: Trainspotting (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Love/Hate, M/M, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28429749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s1ck_girl/pseuds/s1ck_girl
Summary: When Dawn left, a piece of Simon died. When Mark left, all of Simon died.
Relationships: Mark "Rent Boy" Renton/Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	When you lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [americanithink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/americanithink/gifts).



> ok, thank you for ur help! u r the best person ive ever met

Simon sat on the floor and leaned against the thin walls of colored wallpaper in the cheap motel that Begbie rented for the day while in London. He drew his knees up to his chest to rest his elbows on them and run a hand through his unruly bleached hair. Simon could see Spud sat nervously across from him, feet tapping on the old, red carpet in the motel hall. 

Behind the wall that Simon leaned against, Begbie, who forgot that he was on the Federal wanted list, was destroying the small room. They could hear his screams along with the sounds of breaking a bedside table, a floor lamp, and a littered wooden wardrobe. As Simon listened to the shouts and curses directed at Mark Renton, who had stolen their money and fled to an unknown destination in the United Kingdom, he couldn’t believe his best friend had done it. Mark Renton, the person with whom Simon shared his first dose at the age of fifteen, had stolen the money and ran away. Though it wasn’t even about the money, Williamson was hurt that Mark had betrayed him.

When he heard the menacing and rapid clatter of heavy boots that Simon could recognize from a thousand miles away, coming from down the hall, he turned his head to see two men in uniform. He quickly rose to his legs and nodded to Danny, both then calmly walked to the motel’s exit.

When they reached the street, Simon turned to look at everyone and everything with his usual passive-aggressive gaze. He shoved his hands into the pockets of Renton’s dark green jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. When he took one out with his teeth, he saw his own, “Fuck you, Rent boy,” scrawled in uncertain handwriting on the stack. He clenched his jaw along with the small cardboard box. He put it back in his pocket, then lit the cigarette between his teeth.

“Hey, Sy?” Danny hurried over to his friend.

“Fuck you!” Simon threw up his hands while sharply turning to Murphy. He held his blazing cigarette between the fingers of his right hand, and a thin stream of acrid smoke escaped his mouth. 

“Fuck everything!” he exclaimed as he continued walking with his arms outstretched and not really smiling. With Spud next to him, Simon continued, “Begbie’s about to be picked up by the cops! Tommy’s dead! And my best friend ran away! I don’t know where! I don’t know what to do!”

Not knowing what to say, Spud stayed quiet. He decided it was best to leave Simon to his own devices, so he said he wanted a drink at a local pub and left quickly. Simon lit a second cigarette, walked confidently to the house where, a few weeks ago, before Begbie had started a dangerous business with the two packs of heroin, the three of them, Renton, Simon, and Francis, had lived.

“Choose life, choose a job, choose a career, choose a family, choose a fucking big television, choose a washing machine, cars, compact disk player and electric tin openers,”—it was in Simon’s head as he walked. Words that only he and Mark understood the irony of. Their joke, their trick, their stupid follow-up to that anti-drug campaign on TV.—“Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose life.” - Just thinking about it made Simon angry. He clenched his hand into a fist, his long nails digging into his flesh.

Inside the first-floor apartment, Williamson gritted his teeth and searched for heroin under the mattress, the bedsides, the wardrobe, and the pockets of Mark’s discarded clothes. He then remembered that son of a bitch was out of it. But he found a few bills that would at least buy a return ticket to Edinburgh. Simon took a deep breath while covering his eyes with his hands and pointed his face toward the old, cracked ceiling of the rented apartment. He arched his back a little, as Mark did when he injected the drug into his blood and fell on the hard bed. He laid sniffing the smell of Rents that permeated his part of the bed and most of the room. 

Simon opened his fierce and furious brown eyes and grabbed a pillow to throw on the floor. He, like Begbie less than an hour ago, began to throw things all over the small apartment.

“I hate you!” he screamed in agony, scattering the clothes Mark left on the wooden floor of the apartment. “I hate you, motherfucker!” he shouted and cursed while kicking furniture, and tearing and trampling clothes.

When there was nothing left to throw, and there seemed to be sandpaper instead of a throat, Simon sat down again on the feather pillow bed from which he had torn the white sheet a few minutes earlier. He leaned his elbows on his knees and his eyes in the back of his hands, which were wet with tears. He again felt the smell of Renton, but this time it didn’t cause him to break out into a fit of hatred and resentment. Instead, it caused the effects of déjà-vu. 

His big brown eyes flashed through the moments associated with Mark: their first football match when they were 5 years old, the first injection they shared, their first kiss, their first time having sex, their first quarrel, and their first fight. Simon’s whole life seemed to be tied up in invisible knots with Renton, and there was nothing to be done about It. In his head, all the memories were jumbled together: he heard the sixteen-year-old Mark yell: ‘You’re afraid to be yourself’; he remembered his sobs outside the door; he heard his moans and sighs; he saw the blood on his cheekbone after Rent Boy punched him during their first fight; I could feel his hot lips on my neck.

Williamson remembered everything that was impossible to forget. Every trip they took to the cinema, to an Iggy Pop concert, to the club. He remembered every cigarette they’d shared. Each time they viewed a tape, sat on the couch, within inches from each other. Every joke we’ve ever told each other. And every sip of whiskey taken from one bottle. Their first kiss on the old coach in the corner of the club, with an ecstasy pill on Simon’s tongue and nothing in Mark’s mouth. Begbie, Tommy, and Spud were not around, only wankers around them dancing, so Sick Boy decided to act. He grabbed Renton’s chin, pulled him close, and kissed him, tossing the pill to him before taking it back. He remembered Renton’s smile as he kissed him, as soon as Sy’s plump pink lips touched Mark’s. He remembered Rents’ hands on his face. Simon remembered everything.

Without noticing it, there were even more tears in his eyes that he couldn’t hold back. Mark meant too much in his life to be forgotten. Williamson was sobbing softly, hiding his face in his hands. He was quietly whispering hateful words to Mark, who would never hear them. Simon clutched at his bleached hair, threw his head up, and screamed a heart-rending cry of pain that was bursting from every part of his body and could no longer be contained. Mixed with his cries were loud sobs that escaped from his chest, no longer hidden from anyone.

The question in his mind was, “Why?”. Why did Mark do this to him? Why didn’t he stay, why did he leave? Why did he forget everything that happened? Why?! 

Simon couldn’t find any answers to the questions. He felt a tight knot inside him at the thought that Mark was gone and would never come back to him. Simon would never see his stupid smile, fake smile, again. They’d never start talking about Iggy Pop and Lou Reed again. Never share a cigarette or drink vodka from the same bottle again. Simon would never see Mark again. And that was what scared him the most. He kept shouting because he didn’t know what would help him better.

Simon leaped to his feet and glared wildly around, but was unable to see through his tears. Simon took a step toward the wall and slammed his fist into the pale pink plaster with all his might, not knowing where else to vent all his resentment and anger. The force of the blow caused cracks to creep up the wall like snakes, and the pain in the boy’s knuckles spread like a waterfall all over his wrist. He hit the wall again, then, again and again, alternating his fists. He was frantically venting his pain on the pink plaster. Simon sobbed loudly and screamed as the tears ran continuously down his sunken cheeks. And when his strength was gone, he fell to the floor, covered his mouth with his hands, and smashed against the hard floor to keep his sobs down. 

His hands and wrists were covered in the red blood that Williamson saw every day when he took another shot of heroin. The bloody outline of the boy’s fingers was imprinted on the wall. And on the floor, just where Simon had hit the ground, was a mound of pink plaster.

There wasn’t a single thought in his mind. He just lay there, eyes closed tightly, and sobbing hysterically, not knowing what to do next. Simon clutched at his hair, doubled up convulsively. He began punching his stomach and legs to hurt himself as much as possible.

An hour later, when all that was left of the hysteria was a word, bleeding wounds, and sore eyes, Simon got to his feet and went to the bathroom. Without looking at his reflection in the mirror hanging over the sink, he turned on the cold water, which flowed in a wide stream into the white sink. He filled his hands with water, feeling an unpleasant tingling sensation, and washed a couple of times. Taking a deep breath, Williamson leaned his hands on the sides of the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. When he saw his reflection, a boy running a broken hand through his tousled white hair, with blood-pink stains, and with swollen red eyes, and tracks of dried tears on his cheeks, with bitten lips, he clenched his teeth and smashed the mirror with his fist. It cracked and some glass fell into the sink. 

Just like Simon’s heart that morning, it was broken into hundreds of small, sharp fragments.

Williamson jerked his hand away from the sharp, ragged pain, and stared blankly at the pieces of glass in his bleeding knuckles. Grimacing, he clenched his hand into a fist and opened it to feel a rush of pain all over his wrist. Simon scanned around to find a towel to bandage his gash. But he found nothing.

After removing all the fragments of glass from his hand, Simon put his wound under the icy stream of the faucet and, after a couple of seconds, splashed some water on his face to help calm down. When the blood stopped coming from his knuckles, Simon turned off the water and ruffled his hair a couple of times before returning to the room. He bit at his bottom lip, not letting the tears take over his mind again.

Simon was already standing in the doorway, about to leave with his hand on the door handle, when, looking back at the room where his friend’s things were strewn, he remembered everything that had happened in the apartment.

“Do you want to sell your passport, Mark?”

“No! I don’t want to sell my passport!”

“Well… It’s just an idea,” Simon shrugged and continued to eat his baked potatoes. He was sitting so close to Renton that his elbow brushed Mark’s ribs.

“I can’t believe you did this, Sy!” Rent Boy stared at the table where the TV had been. Simon just shrugged again and smiled when he heard the short form of his name that only Mark ever called him.

“Rents, do you wanna smoke?” Williamson held out a lit cigarette to his friend as he lay on the bed.

“Yes,” he put the latest issue of the newspaper on his lap, held a cigarette between his fingers, and closed his eyes to take a drag on it. Simon watched.

The bleached haired man pushed all his memories out of his head while slammed the door and exited the hallway of the apartment building. Once on the street, Simon shoved his hands into the pockets of Renton’s jacket, which always smelled of him - cigarettes, cheap Cologne, and Edinburgh. He walked to the nearest bus station, which was two blocks from Mark’s rented apartment. 

As he walked, an Iggy Pop song played in his head, and he could see Mark smiling as he walked down this very street with him, having run away from a cranky Begbie ostensibly for food. In fact, they had been walking around London at night for too long, but they did bring Franco’s potatoes.

As they walked, Renton, hunched over with his hands in the pockets of the same jacket that Williamson was wearing, talked, and occasionally pointed out the sights of London with his thin hands. He shuffled his feet, flinched at every sharp sound, sniffed frequently; His gaze was unsteady, and he was always ready to run. These features gave away that he was a former drug addict. Mark often looked at Simon with a smile and hid his happy dark eyes from him.

Now, Simon’s heart was breaking for the hundredth time that day, and there were tears in his eyes. He walked faster, slouched even more, and tried to think of something else.

“One ticket to Edinburgh. On the next bus trip,” he snapped while putting down the crumpled bills he found in Mark’s apartment. Simon couldn’t help but look around nervously. His fingers fumbled in his pocket while pulling out the pack of cigarettes. As the girl at the ticket counter prepared his ticket, Simon lit a cigarette and glanced around as if waiting for someone. But this someone still did not appear. It seemed like another second would pass, and Mark would come around the corner or come up behind him. He’d put his arm around Simon and smile stupidly, as he always did.

“Your ticket, mister,” the girl said in a monotone voice while holding out a sheet with the number of the bus and the time of its stay. Simon quickly took it out of her hands and caught the scared look in her eyes at the sight of his broken skin. Williamson, showing his white teeth, as Mark always did when he was displeased with something, smiled a hideous, not real smile before leaving to the waiting room.

“Ride 32. 15.40,” the ticket read. Simon was sprawled on an iron chair at the bus station, exhaling heavily. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

Simon started to remember the last days spent with Mark: his strong arms, when they sold the heroin and were excited to spend the money, the bar they were in a few hours later, how he sat with a silly smile while looking at Mark. 

Simon remembered his joy thinking of the money and that tomorrow Renton and he would continue to live somewhere in London, England, would engage with heroin and… and how he woke up to Begbie shouting and the sound of broken windows from thrown chairs. For some reason, Simon understood right away. The whole world and hope for a bright future were shattered by cruel reality, along with chairs and glasses. Everything in his stomach clenched: Simon wanted to scream and destroy everything with Franco, but he understood that such recklessness was characteristic of Begbie, who in a fit of emotion grabbed the emotionless Simon by his orange t-shirt with a cry, “Did you know?!” which would not lead to anything good. 

So Simon just got to his feet and went out into the hall and sat on the floor to wait for something. Maybe a Stamp. Maybe a miracle. But I only waited for the cops, who came because of a complaint call about neighbors loudly screaming.

Williamson was afraid to admit it to himself, but somewhere deep inside he still had hope. Hope for the bright future that he had planned with Mark. The future that he cherished every day. And exactly the future that would never be.

A few minutes later, Simon fell asleep while clutching the pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket.

“Mark! Mark! Mark!” Simon could hear his own voice far away as if echoing in an auditorium, and all around him was blackness. There was no response from Renton, but Sick Boy could clearly see the outline of his back and the dark jeans he wore on their last day. Mark went further and further away. Simon ran, but he didn’t get any closer to Renton. 

“Mark! Mark, stop!” Williamson continued to break into tears. “Mark!” Music played in the darkness, Iggy Pop, it seems. Simon would always remember that song when he and Mark first kissed at the club. The muzzle of a gun appeared in front of Simon and went off without giving the boy a second to think.

From the loud sound in his dream, Williamson jerked awake. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, which had dried blood on it, as he straightened up in his chair. 15.43, said the station clock. Simon jumped to his feet, cursing under his breath as he frantically searched for the number of his bus. Finally, Simon spotted ride 32 and walked briskly towards it. 

Once inside the stuffy interior of the bus, he handed the ticket to the driver and took his seat next to a woman who gave Simon the impression that she was disgusted with him just by looking at him. She squinted at his bruised hands and clutched her bags closer to her. Williamson, despite the frightened woman, opened the window and lit a cigarette.

“Young man, close the window,” she demanded.

“No. I’m smoking.”

Simon chuckled to himself. The pack of cigarettes with the inscription was almost out, but he wasn’t even planning to throw them away. The pack and jacket were the only things Simon had left of Mark, to whom he had been loyal to and who had betrayed him.

It was only when the bus started that Simon threw his cigarette out into the street, but still didn’t fully close the window. He leaned back in his seat, put his hands in his pockets, and fell asleep sobbing softly.

“Sy… ? Where are you?”

“I’m here,” the bleached haired boy’s hand went to Mark’s palm. Everything was black as night again, but Williamson remembered it as a clear day. Renton squeezed Simon’s hand tightly. They were sitting with their backs against a dumpster near the back entrance of the Dog Park.

“Mark,” the boy whispered in his ear so only Rents could hear. “Are you cold?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie,” Simon took off his jacket, draping it over his friend’s thin shoulders.

“You won’t be cold?”

“No, don’t worry,” Williamson smiled, looking at Mark. He wanted so much to take his hand or hug him, to warm him up faster. Instead, he just put his arm around his friend’s shoulders, holding him close.

“Sy? Are you sure Begbie isn’t around?” Mark asked as he sat on Williamson’s lap in the club’s bathroom, pulling his mouth away from his friend’s but not taking his hands off his neck.

“One hundred percent sure, Rent Boy,” Simon impatiently pulled Mark by his yellow t-shirt and kissed him again. Holding the other close, Sick Boy could feel Rents’ heartbeat rapidly as it reciprocated the kiss with the same excitement as Simon.

When the front door of the club bathroom slammed and footsteps were audible, Mark jerked away from the confused Simon, who continued to catch Renton’s lips in the air for a couple of seconds. He kissed his protruding collarbones and thin neck, leaving purple hickeys. Mark was even more nervous, but Williamson rolled his eyes and whispered softly, “It’s all right, Rents,” and kissed him again on the lips.

“Fuck you!” Mark shoved Simon in the chest, pushing him away.

“I just wanna talk, Rents, I don’t wanna fight,” Simon began calmly while folding his arms over his chest where he was hit. Then Mark punched him hard on the cheekbone which the force of the blow caused him to fall to the floor.

“Fuck you, Simon!” he shouted while going into the other room and slamming the door.

“Mark,” a low exclamation came from Sick Boy as he awoke by the door loudly being slammed. His eyes were wet from all the dreams that had once been reality.

It was already quite dark outside the bus window. Simon rested his elbow on the small windowsill and sat his chin on his hand, looking out at the dark street. He still couldn’t believe that Mark was gone forever.


End file.
